How Russell conquered Mercedes' weaknesses and his 2023 demons in Singapore

The first thing that most notice on touching down in Singapore is the intoxicating humidity. A wall of heat sucker-punches you in the face when you first unchain yourself from the environs of Changi Airport, where the air conditioning is chilling to the point where it almost leaves the carpeted floor throughout the terminal bearing a layer of frost.

Even late at night, when tucking into sambal prawns or char kway teow at one of Singapore's myriad excellent eateries, a bead of sweat will pour from one's brow - and I promise you, it's not from the chilli.

No other Formula 1 race sits quite so closely to the equator. In-car drinks bottles can quickly find their near-frozen liquid contents cooking into a plastic-tinged tea within minutes, and drivers can lose almost two kilograms of body weight through sheer perspiration - the warm brew piped into their mouthpieces operates as the sole respite from the conditions. Singapore's Marina Bay Circuit is demanding, physical and, above all, a sweat-fest.

Those are hardly the conditions you'd associate with a Mercedes victory, at least not in recent times. Consider the narrative: over the past couple of years the silver cars have been more at home in colder climates, where lower track temperatures tend to keep tyre overheating in check. Loading through high-speed corners and tyre compounds are also variables that should be considered, and Mercedes does tend to struggle when Pirelli nominates the softer grades of rubber for a grand prix.

When George Russell tipped his W16 into the Turn 16 barrier during FP2, it was very easy to write Mercedes off for another weekend. This writer indeed did so, even suggesting that the quick-out-the-gate Racing Bulls or Aston Martin drivers might give the Silver Arrows cause to be concerned. The heat was enough of a compelling argument.

Hence, an apology is due. As it turned out, Mercedes did have a car that could cope with the conditions, and Russell pressed it into service expertly. The Briton enjoyed an impressive qualifying session, one where he found a 0.4-second gain between his best laps in Q2 and Q3 to plonk his car on pole ahead of Max Verstappen. The reigning world champion had grievances with Lando Norris for supplying him with enough dirty air to mess up his braking zone for Turn 16 at the end of his second lap, but ultimately couldn't be too unhappy with a front-row start for the grand prix.

Russell covered off the soft-shod Verstappen at the start, ticking off the first box en route to victory

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Verstappen wanted to win his third race on the bounce and knew that the chances of doing so would be weaker without pole position, given the difficulty of catching and passing drivers in Singapore. While second on the grid brings its occupant a clear path to the inside of Turn 1, it comes with the caveat of significantly less rubber having been laid down through the sessions.

One complication of the race's opening had lain in the weather. Rain had sparsely peppered the city-state over the preceding days, with more forecast for Sunday, but this only affected the afternoon prelude. Still, it wasn't to the magnitude where it washed away the rubber from the racing line and offered some equalisation to the starting grid, so Verstappen needed to do something different. The concern over track grip over the second sector steered everyone away from opening with the hard tyre, and so Verstappen elected to open with left-over softs from qualifying to gather a little more purchase from the race's getaway.

Russell, however, now has battle-hardened experience of starting alongside Verstappen. He made the first corner his own at Montreal this year, and snowballed that into victory despite waves of pressure from the Dutchman - and duly did the same again in Singapore. The Mercedes driver got the stronger start, held the line through the opening trio of corners, and immediately built a break over Verstappen to ward off the threat of DRS on the following tour.

"This track has not been my best friend over the years and that's often been through my own doing - but I'm a very different driver today" George Russell

Verstappen, meanwhile, was occupied in dealing with the cruise-missile start from Norris. Maligned for his inconsistent openings to races, Norris will invariably pick the route that leads him to getting boxed in into the first corner, which has proved costly in the past - Baku, Zandvoort, and Hungary being recent examples of that. This time, however, he'd found a route past Andrea Kimi Antonelli into the first corner and clipped over the apex as he drew side-by-side with team-mate Oscar Piastri.

Norris pointed his car towards the apex for Turn 3 while Piastri tried to squeeze him off and buy more space for the left-hander, but the subsequent minor contact between Norris' front end and Verstappen's rear pitched him off-course and into Piastri's side. Cue fury within the Australian's cockpit, as his nose was firmly put out of joint by the robustness of the eventual pass.

"I thought it was a smart move [to fit the soft] from those guys," Russell said of Red Bull's opening gambit, "because if Max jumped me at Turn 1, I think, to be honest, I think he would have won the race because overtaking was so challenging. It was crucial that we nailed the start. It's been a strong point of mine this year, so I'm glad we did."

Norris and Piastri made contact in the opening lap, which somewhat overshadowed McLaren's constructors' title triumph

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

Russell had the lead and, versus Verstappen, a bit of a tyre advantage; the Red Bull was on the quicker compound, sure, but he was never going to be able to lean on it without paying for it later on. There was a sense of trepidation among the teams in their approaches to the longer runs, as few had any real idea of how the tyres were going to degrade during the race; the brace of red-flag stoppages in FP2 killed off any hopes of completing any long-run checklists. A one-stop strategy was expected, but not taken for granted.

Either way, Russell felt he could push a little bit more than the cars behind and leave them for dust. By the fourth lap, his lead was up to two seconds over Verstappen; it was 2.5s by the fifth. His lead continued to grow, even if Verstappen had escaped Norris' clutches for the time being, and was trending towards a five-second advantage by the 10th lap.

Verstappen had his hands full with Norris and - more literally - with a recalcitrant downshift, the opening to his frustrations with his Red Bull machinery. By the 17th lap, McLaren had either considered undercutting Verstappen or had tried to goad Red Bull into stopping early to give Norris more chance to get on terms with Russell, but Red Bull would not be moved until the end of the 19th lap - when Verstappen ditched his soft tyres for the hard.

Helpfully for Verstappen, this put him ahead of Alonso and within the gap that had emerged between the Aston Martin driver and the top seven. In evading the undercut, Verstappen began to flex his pace with the new rubber (despite various further complaints about his car handling) and closed the chance that Norris could get ahead. While Russell still had margin, having almost grown his gap to Verstappen to 10 seconds by the time Red Bull serviced the four-time champion's car, he was on a timer.

Mercedes waited for six more laps, by which time Russell was starting to feel his tyres were "dropping" in performance. Once the stops had shaken out, and the McLarens having cleared the decks out front with their own stops, Russell was now just over 3.5 seconds clear of Verstappen.

Where Russell was attempting to perhaps bring his tyres in slowly, Verstappen was up to speed. He closed the lead down to 2.7 seconds and hoped to expand that into a renewed challenge for the lead but, while attempting to maintain his chase, went deep at Turn 14. This cost Verstappen around two seconds, and gave Norris the opportunity to upgrade his deficit (which was around 4.4 seconds post-stop) into one that was within two seconds. The chase was back on - but not the one Verstappen had hoped for.

"The rear is a handbrake," Verstappen reported to Gianpiero Lambiase, the proverbial voice of good conscience on his shoulder. Lambiase offered his driver some brake balance and torque map options, which momentarily stalled Norris' progress. The fleeting sense that Verstappen could catch Russell, however, was almost gone.

Verstappen struggled with the behaviour of his Red Bull across the race - citing issues with his gearshifts

Photo by: Shameem Fahath / Motorsport Network

There was one more opportunity for Verstappen to capitalise on, but this was one that proved to be to his detriment. Like Singapore at rush hour, there was a not-inconsiderable tailback of traffic to contend with as the backmarkers were soon set to be lapped. As Russell emerged into view of the train, the blockage and outpouring of dirty air from the cast of Alpines, Saubers, and Esteban Ocon's Haas started to eat into his advantage; it was now back down to 3.3 seconds as the flutter of blue flags began to emerge.

Verstappen, however, was still struggling with his car. "I knew that even on a hard tyre, it was still a long way to go," he reflected. "I think my tyres were six or seven older than George and Lando, more or less. It was not easy out there, plus the whole race, I was struggling a lot with the downshifting and upshifting. That was not helping, and the balance probably was not where I wanted it to be."

All told, Russell made relatively light work of the traffic, while Verstappen perhaps faced more delay in trying to part the seas ahead. Norris was glued to the Red Bull's tail like a barnacle, using the car ahead to break through the waves before attempting to wrong-foot Verstappen having now gained the power of the DRS. But Verstappen had made his one mistake, and was not likely to make another.

Mercedes has come on song at the right time. While the constructors' championship has now been locked down by McLaren, Mercedes is aiming to keep Ferrari and Red Bull at bay for the runner-up position

Once clear of a second pack of traffic, Russell had enough in his pocket to see the car home. With five laps remaining, he was over six seconds clear - but had his previous Singapore hoodoo in mind as he took more margin amid the final stages. Two years ago, amid Carlos Sainz's breaking of Red Bull's dominant streak across 2023, Russell knocked the wall on the entry to Turn 10 and speared into the barrier - a mistake he scarcely wished to repeat.

"This track has not been my best friend over the years and that's often been through my own doing," Russell explained after taking victory, with a margin of 5.4 seconds over Verstappen by the end. "But as I said yesterday, I'm a very different driver today to the one I was a couple of years ago. I feel more complete, more confident.

"I know exactly what I need to do and given circumstances, of course I was nervous before the race as you'd expect, but I didn't feel any additional nerves or any additional pressure. It just felt like another race and I knew I had a chance to win and I felt comfortable with that. I feel ready to fight for a championship. I feel ready to take it to the next step."

Russell had Verstappen in his mirrors after the stops, but the Dutchman's mistake eased some of the pressure

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

Russell also theorised why Mercedes had shrugged off its usual difficulties in hotter conditions, although he still admitted to some surprise that the team had been so competitive.

"I think with some of the corners having new tarmac, it's a bit smoother," he suggested. "The tyres also seem a little bit more robust this year." It likely also helps that Singapore has very few high-load corners, and it's easier to keep them in a more workable temperature range through the slower, short-radius turns that Marina Bay possesses.

But Mercedes has made genuine progress in this area too. Since reverting to the early-season rear suspension package, since its anti-lift arrangement caused more problems than it was worth, the W16 has been a much more stable proposition. Note Russell's recent performances, but also those of Antonelli - who secured a solid fifth-place finish and looked largely at home on a circuit he'd never driven around before Friday.

For its own part, Mercedes has come on song at the right time. While the constructors' championship has now been locked down by McLaren - Norris' third place and Piastri's fourth providing more than enough points to secure the teams' crown - Mercedes is aiming to keep Ferrari and Red Bull at bay for the runner-up position. Russell's second win of 2025 and Antonelli's improving form has helped the team find a 25-point advantage over the third-placed Ferrari.

The big-ticket battle between Piastri and Norris (and Verstappen) remains in place, and Norris' first-lap move has cut the deficit to his team-mate to 22 points. But the money is in the constructors' fight, and Mercedes has secured a crucial step here - not only against its nearest rivals, but also against its own previous weaknesses in contemporary F1.

Russell and Norris seek respite from the humidity after the grand prix

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images